Redefine authority. Don't outsource your power.

---

Redefine authority. Don’t outsource yours.

We have an authority problem. Mostly, that we’ve outsourced our own inner authority to external “experts” and “authorities.”

Doctors.

Politicians.

Clergy.

Bosses.

Data.

I’m not suggesting that people in these roles are not helpful or good at what they do. (I’m also not suggesting that they ALL are.) I believe in expertise, experience, wisdom, and learning from others.

The problem is, somewhere along the way expertise became tangled up in systems of dominance. Authority became something externalized, something we were commanded to “look up” to. It became hierarchical—and worse, substitutional. It was meant to supplant our own self-knowledge

When that happens, and when we don’t develop our own inner authority—our own self-knowledge, intuition, and agency—we get exploited and manipulated.

It’s time to make ourselves the authority—literally, the authors—of our own lives. We have agency, intuition and instinct to develop self-awareness and self-knowledge. We can collect our own experiential data about what happens when we live life—just by paying attention to our intuition, instinct, and the world around us.

When we develop a strong compass based on our own integrity and self-knowledge—and ADD that to the knowledge of experts, rather than suppressing our own inner expertise in order to elevate someone else’s knowledge—that’s when we can evolve the conversation. Create better outcomes. Create healthier lives.

Don’t outsource your own authority. Write your own life; others can be contributing editors, but you get to author the plot. Write what you know: yourself.

---

What’s one way to develop your inner authority? Add your intuition to your intellect.

The Age of Reason has had a good run. 

Reason is good. Reason created some elegant methods for pursuing knowledge. We’ve solved some problems. We’ve discovered so much.

How’s that working out for us? Are we happier, healthier, more in love with life?

For many of us, there’s still something missing.

The Age of Intuition is re-emerging.

True to character, it has been gestating in the murky nether-regions of our soil and psyches, crafting an underground network of connection, meaning, and love as we’ve flailed above, trying not to need all of those things that aren’t susceptible to the slick schtick of reason.

We’ve become experts at consuming knowledge—it is more available to us than ever, we can consume it more quickly than ever.

But… then what?

When we add intuition to intellect, we’re using a broader spectrum of knowledge. Knowledge can grow into the fullness of wisdom.

Intuition IS knowledge.

It’s just a different pathway for acquiring knowledge than the singular cerebral way we’ve been taught over the past few hundred years.

Intuition is thinking differently—not thinking ABOUT things differently (though this will be a likely outcome), but literally using a different mechanism for thinking: intuition.

Interestingly, intuition is not behind a paywall.

Intuition is freely available to all.

Intuition gathers its own data, and still manages to be evidence-based.

Intuition bypasses “authority.”

Which is exactly why it has been maligned and relegated to the world of woo—it’s basically free power. 

Intuition isn’t going to fix all of your problems. But it will add depth to your knowledge, and help turn it into wisdom.

Intuition will help you understand yourself more deeply. It will help you understand others more fully.

Intuition will help you see the patterns that connect your personal experience to the world at large—and beyond.

Adding intuition to intellect is how we find our way back to healthy humanity—deep humans, deep connection, for a healthy planet, for all.

Untangle your value from your rank + role.

Untangle your value from your rank + role.

Most of us currently operate within cultures that use hierarchy to signal authority, rank, and expertise.

Bosses, C-suite, and experts are seen as more valuable than those who fall lower on the totem pole.

Rank is equated to power, high value, leadership, and dominance.

But we’ve mixed up our PERSONAL value with FUNCTIONAL value of roles and rank within hierarchy.

Someone higher up may (or not) have more functional value than someone else.

But no one is more inherently valuable as a human being than others. Our value has nothing to do with our jobs. To be a humanful leader—one who is collaborative, co-creative, and inclusive—this is crucial to understand.

The function of our role, however, becomes more or less valuable depending on the circumstances. We just don’t have systems that reflect that, by and large—we have fixed systems, not fluid ones.

When hierarchy + identity become entangled, things go wonky.

Hierarchies are useful: triage, emergencies, situations requiring quick, coordinated execution and pre-planned strategies and protocols. In these cases, functions meet context, and a fixed hierarchy is efficient and effective. Makes sense.

But as rigid models used to signal rank + dominance—which in our culture have also come to signal personal value—hierarchies become a tool for disconnection. When every action is ranked, each action becomes a judgment of better than/less than—every action becomes a transaction.

When relationships become transactional, we lose the possibilities that come from collaborating, co-creating, and mutual respect; we end up relying more on people-pleasing or politicking to receive accolades—and our salaries.

We run the risk of losing ourselves, because our identities are not found in rank, roles, or value judgments about them (even if someone tells you they are); identity can only be found within.

This is one reason why many leaders end up feeling “alone at the top,” or disconnected from the reality of their organization. The farther apart the roles in a hierarchy, the more disconnection and distrust exists between them.

Others can feel less-than, like imposters, or needing to pacify those at higher levels.

This inhibits healthy competition, which arises from going all in with others who are willing to do the same. 

It also hinders the institution from operating effectively as an organism. We all saw during COVID that the value of a role is largely contextual: front-line healthcare workers became the most valuable roles on the planet, but their rank within hierarchy didn’t necessarily reflect that.

Creativity, collaboration, and innovation rely on mutual connection, respect, safety. Rank and hierarchy hinder this—unless proactive steps are taken to make sure that they don’t.

This is a loss at a personal level: managing egos is far less interesting than evolving our expertise.

It’s also a systemic loss: rank hinders feedback that flows up, and feedback is intelligence about the organism’s health. Why might feedback be withheld? Because it might be received as an affront to rank by the ego—and if that person is the one who evaluates us, and our evaluations are what ensure we get to pay our bills… well, that’s some dynamic tension right there. Let’s talk about it.

When we untangle personal identity from role/rank within hierarchy—when organizations can focus more on functional aspects of hierarchy and less on egoic—that creates an ecosystem that fosters healthy human collaboration, competition, and creativity.

That is an open, innovative system. That is growth mindset. That is evolution.

What could healing hierarchy look like?

1. Untangle value judgments from roles within hierarchy.

2. View it as a multi-faceted, contextual organism in service of a mission rather than a tool for wielding dominance.

What if we revalued hierarchies?

What if the current way of overvaluing the top and undervaluing the bottom of the triangle is flawed? Not because hierarchies are bad, but because fixed hierarchies have been used for signaling dominance, which is arbitrary, which erodes connection, which erodes trust between individuals and of institutions, which erodes community, which erodes human prosperity, which erodes generosity and compassion and joy?

What if we used hierarchies as a fluid tool that could flatten and reassemble based on context and necessity?

Where affluence flowed to the most valuable based on circumstance—not fixed, arbitrary judgments of who has more “social capital” or “power” than whom?

What if the hierarchy understood that the top of the triangle only exists because the entire rest of it exists? That it is a reciprocal, interdependent system that can only operate as a unit? That every role is only as valuable as the circumstances it responds to, which will shift because life does?

What if hierarchy knew how to get itself into flow state?

What if the structures and systems we build evolve as quickly as we do?

This is part of my series “Healing Hierarchy: How to shift from domination to collaboration in the workplace.” More to come.

The surprising power of play

---

The surprising power of play.

Playing is basically evolution that works well for our nervous systems—not the kind of evolution that requires us to starve, mutate, exhaust ourselves, inflict pain, render ourselves extinct, all that fun stuff. 

• Play is experimentation. 

• Play is iteration.

• Play is pushing past our boundaries.

• Play is creative.

• Play is co-creative.

• Play is strengthening.

• Play helps regulate our nervous systems.

• Play is fun.

• Play strengthens social connection.

• Physical play strengthens our muscles, body language, connection cues.

• Play laughs in the face of judgment--and invites it to play.

• Play dares itself to take it one step too far.

• Play is a way for us to grow and evolve with low stakes. The outcome doesn’t matter—which means we can be open to any possibility arising, rather than trying to control and manage the process so we achieve a predictable process and outcome.

Play is growth mindset.

Predictability, control, managing—these are all excellent things in certain circumstances. And unbelievably boring in others.

You know the phrase, “If you want to make god laugh, tell her your plans?”

I think this is basically the universe’s way of telling us that we are not the boss of her—but she would love to play with us, because she loves a good laugh and loves creating things. 

If you want to grow, PLAY.

If you want to be creative, PLAY.

If you want to evolve, PLAY.

Play answers a surprising number of questions.

How else could the world have ridiculous things like blue-footed boobies and hammerhead sharks and hot-magenta dragonfruit and sloths? There’s a tiny bug on my gardenia with fuzz coming out of its butt—it’s ridiculous. You think these were the a result of serious, controlled work?

No, clearly these are manifestations of the mindset of, “I wonder what happens if I do THIS?”

What if we let go of trying to manage the process, and played through it? Together?

What if we outplayed play?

Want to up the ante?

Practice ridiculosity: ridiculousness at high velocity (I like to make up words, because I love to PLAY).

Don’t underestimate the power of ridiculousness. Go play.

*

There’s been a lot of research over the past several years about the importance of play. And one of my favorite books is Deep Play by Diane Ackerman. I highly recommend it!

Step one: Redefine power

Redefine “power” to mean being in love with life. YOUR life.

What would it feel like if you were in love + lust with your life? What would it look like?

What would the world look like if everyone was in love with their lives? What if that was non-negotiable?

I can’t magically make our problems go away. This is not an excuse to turn away from the suffering in the world and what we all need to do to alleviate it.

But I can learn what I love, and hold myself accountable to honoring what I love with my time and energy. I can learn what makes me feel vibrant, and honor that with my time and energy.

I can learn to scale out my perspective so I see how indescribably beautiful the sheer improbability of this planet is.

I can marvel at the craziness of fireflies, and feel a little bit jealous that I can’t do that.

I can do others the honor of asking them what they love, what brings them alive. 

When I allow myself to do what I love, I feel powerful, happy, generous. When I’m filled to overflowing with my own humanity, I want to do that with everyone else.

I happen to think that if we all did this, the world would start healing in bigger and faster ways. And this is totally doable. It’s not everything (or maybe it is), but it’s something.

Joy loves joy. Power loves power. When power is joyful, and joy is powerful, we will have found ourselves smack in the middle of a new paradigm.

Start right now. Some ideas? Glad you asked! Here are a few:

---

When someone asks you what you do, tell them what you love.

Then ask them what they love.

What if we were all allies, helping each other to uphold for ourselves what we love, helping us stay true to what we love? What if we were asked many times a day to share what we love, and why? What if what we love is non-negotiable?

We all “do” a million things, play a million roles. I think what you love is the most interesting thing about you. I’d love to know what you love.

---

Take off your masks.

We all play a million parts throughout our lives. Often, we put on masks in order to fit into different scenarios, to be acceptable to different people, to be valued by various systems—all of which are playing their parts, as well.

The problem is, we sometimes lose sight of who we truly are beneath our roles and masks.

We play our parts so well, we forget that they are just that: parts.

And when we lose sight of ourselves, we need others to validate our existence, rather than knowing the truth of ourselves—and sharing it—from the inside out.

Who are you without your masks? What would happen if you took them off, one by one? What if vulnerability and transparency was accompanied by relief—relief that you can finally respond to life as YOU, not a small subset of you?

We find ourselves in a strange spacetime in history where we are both starving for connection and inundated with it at the same time.

What we’re craving is not just any and all connection, but authentic, nourishing, pleasurable connection: not surface-level, smush-yourself-down-into-a-box-to-conform empty-calorie connection.

We’re aching for quality, not quantity.

There are those of us who want more of you. There are those of us who want to see all of you, and are waiting for you to reveal the rich facets of who you are so we can play as whole, in-it-all-together human beings.

Trust follows truth.

Connection follows trust.

Authentic connection heals the trauma of disconnection—and of domination masquerading as connection.

Taking off our masks is a great first step.

---

Don’t make an impact ON the world, realign with its natural intelligence. And yours.

If you’re reading this, you probably think a lot about where we’re headed as earthlings. I sure do. You know you want to do good, to leave the world a better place. I want that, too.

But I’ve also realized that life wants something from me.

That my intentions, no matter how noble, how visionary, will rapidly become wobbly if I don’t anchor them in what the world needs and desires along with me.

That imposing my vision on the world is a very old-school, will-based, power-over, my way or the highway pattern. It’s all about me. It’s about making my mark, making an impact ON. This is the type of overpowering that happens when we’re actually unsure of our power.

But my relationship with life needs to be consensual.

Playing WITH life, co-creating along with it—that’s the bigger game. That’s the game I want to play. Then it is about me, and also about everyone and everything else. The beauty of this is that, while I might be cultivating my particular vision of a garden, I’m never doing it alone.

Life is telling us what it desires all the time. It is showing us where there are needs all the time. It is giving us opportunities to learn about our deepest desires and gifts all the time (#naps). It is giving us information about what we definitely want no part of all the time (#math).

When we align our natural intelligence—the feedback system of pleasure, pain, love, grief, talent, joy, beliefs, vision—with the natural intelligence of the world, then we will have aligned ourselves with life as it is: a fluid ecosystem continually giving and receiving feedback about how to come back into balance.

This feels much more real than pretending I’m in control of it all.

This is how you co-create an impact FOR the world, with the world.

This feels much more connected to my natural human intelligence, which intuitively and instinctively knows that everything is interdependent, that systems have innate intelligence.

This feels like a relief. Try it out. Let me know how it goes?

---

Asking for help is you exercising your agency; it is NOT “victim-mode.”

Enough with the victim-shaming. Asking for help is not the same thing as asking someone to do something for you, it’s asking someone to do something WITH you.

Our true nature is to give, AND to receive. We are not designed to do everything alone.

Do we need to build up our strength, skills, resourcefulness? Absolutely.

Can we be prompted to see and rely on our own power + agency? Absolutely. 

Do we need to rescue everyone? Nope. 

But we need to get real about the fact that there are incredibly difficult circumstances that people need help with. Sometimes, this even means doing something for them.

Telling someone (or yourself) to get out of “survival mode” and into “thriving mode” may be turning a blind eye to the systemic circumstances that perpetuate pain + suffering, and puts all of the burden on the individual to overcome them.

There is a time and place for “thriving mode,” for sure. But we need to be able to discern whether or not our minds, bodies, nervous systems, and external experiences are aligned enough for us to make that transition. If not, we end up stuck and feeling the shame of yet another “failure” to live up to our potential.

Please, be kind with yourself + others. It’s entirely possible that we have within us conflicting parts, some of which are able to thrive, some that aren’t. This is just fine, as long as we don’t bulldoze the parts that aren’t yet ready to shift or glorify the parts that are.

It may be that the “victimy” part desperately longs to know it doesn’t have to do life alone.

We will likely flow in and out if thriving + surviving, victimhood + creatorhood throughout our lives, just because life is life.

We are works in progress, always. So is life. Understanding this might be the most powerful thing you can do for yourself, and others.